DNA-barcoding California’s insect biodiversity to discover new species and create a library for fast and affordable biodiversity monitoring

The California Insect Barcoding Initiative’s goal is to create a DNA-barcode reference library for all of California’s insect species by sampling freshly collected specimens from around the state as well as identified specimens from our natural history collections. To facilitate the discovery of new species, we are sampling as many ecoregions across the state as possible with a variety of methods, and our long-term Malaise traps are intended to sample sites across time so that we can study phenology, monitor abundance, and develop accumulation curves to see how long it takes to sample all of the species in an environment. Insects are the most diverse group of organisms on the planet, which comes with challenges for documenting their biodiversity, including the tremendous amount of time and labor it takes to identify millions of specimens to species. By creating a reference library of the barcoding region of cytochrome oxidase 1, we can make identifying large amounts of specimens quick and affordable, which can aid in the discovery of new species, improve insect monitoring for pests or for conservation, and accumulate enough biodiversity data to use insects to inform conservation policy or study ecological processes.